Trump says AI safety fears a 'hoax' as he rejects calls for greater safeguards

ByPeter Hoskins Business reporter.

Key points

• Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and veteran progressive Senator Bernie Sanders are due to speak at the "Pro-Human Assembly" in Washington on Tuesday.
• Additionally on Monday, Chinese state media stated experts had cautioned that "Washington's growing anxiety over China's rapid AI development appears to be increasingly distorting its policy priorities".
• In response, Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger remarked he thought the possibility of AI causing human extinction "within the next decade" was more than 10%.
• As he criticised calls to have more guardrails for the fast-moving technology, US President Donald Trump has remarked fears concerning the safety of AI are a "hoax".
• Trump additionally called himself "the Hoax Buster", likening worries regarding the safety of the technology to what he called "the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX".

It comes after Jack Clark, a co-founder of AI giant Anthropic, informed the BBC that a "kill switch" for dangerous AI that can be checked by a third party may need to be mandatory for the industry.

Clark's comments followed warnings regarding the risks the technology poses to humanity that have been raised in recent days by a number of executives and staff at leading AI firms.

Those reservations triggered a selloff in shares of some tech firms on Monday as investors weighed the impact of a potential slowdown in the development of AI.

In a series of social media posts on Monday, the US president compared warnings regarding AI to the "Global Warming Scam", that he stated was "being perpetrated by the Radical Left Dumocrats".

In another post he wrote: "There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy regarding it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!"

And earlier on Monday, Trump posted on social media that the only "guardrails" needed for AI was a "strong and smart" president.

"They know that China has become a strong competitor in AI, and worry that if the US slows down development or tightens regulation, China could catch up even faster, " Xin Qiang, a professor of American Studies at Fudan University, informed the Global Times.

Clark, who is one of Anthropic's seven founders, remarked earlier on Monday that a way of shutting off AI software completely if it gets too dangerous was something society "might want to eventually pass rules around".

He continued that "most labs have different ways of being able to pull the plug", including Anthropic, but stated lawmakers may need to enforce having one.

Clark's comments add to the growing number of tech industry and political figures calling for better safeguards.

As it published an outline document on what it called "humanist AI", on Monday, Microsoft AI became the latest major firm to discuss limiting the models it is developing.

For context, the firm's chief executive Mustafa Suleyman informed business news channel CNBC that it had been working on the new guidance for months and had decided to publish it now due to the current debate around the technology.

In an indication of how reservations over the technology have been thrust into the spotlight, two high-profile figures on opposite sides of US politics are set to appear at the same event calling for a re-evaluation of AI policy.

According to its website the gathering "aims to define a shared vision and articulate a better, more human-centric path for AI development".

Sanders informed BBC's Newsnight last week that "we have got to do something immediately to stop the uncontrolled growth of AI".

"You've got the existential threat of the possibility of humanity being wiped out, " he remarked.

Meanwhile, the debate over the potential dangers posed by the technology intensified in recent days after a post by Jacob Coxon, a researcher who left Anthropic over reservations AI could wipe out humanity, went viral.

As the business has done before, though some have questioned the motivations behind this, this weekend, Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei pressed the pace of AI development to slow and be more closely monitored.

According to Amodei additionally, any action to rein in AI should be done "without sacrificing commercial advantage".

As well as independent monitoring of AI model development, the bosses of two rival AI firms, Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI, have additionally stated they agree with Amodei's proposal for industry-wide deceleration and regulation.

For now, trump says AI safety fears a ' hoax' as he rejects calls for remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.